Month: November 2017

It looks like it will be a cold winter this year here in the UK. Yesterday I saw a homeless man on the street sleeping in a shop doorway, it was 09.30 and bitterly cold. I could not afford to give him money but did so as I was worried that he was not well and needed a reason to wake him. This country is an awful place with extreme social injustice condemned by the UN, a country where many people have no money to live on. Poverty is high and getting higher – childhood poverty has soared by 400,000 since the Conservatives came to power. While corporations get tax concessions and tax payers fund another extravagant royal wedding poor people get their benefits cut or taken away from them.

How long I ask myself is this nightmare going to be allowed to continue. We cannot have people living in poverty in the 6th richest economy. Shameful. Anyone who votes Tory should be ashamed for you are responsible for the damage to thousands of people’s lives including children. How do you sleep at night, not like the homeless man mentioned above ? The indifference of many people to the plight of those needing benefits has also played a role in consigning many people to lives of misery and despair, not knowing where their next meal will come from or if they will have a roof over their heads.

Under cover of the announcement of the royal wedding – 0dd how there is plenty of money to indulge those who already have it in
abundance – the government announced that they intend to continue the freeze on benefits:

Benefit freeze to stay for working people costing typical family £300 a year

“Millions of people will have their benefits frozen for another 12 months from April in a move that will cost a typical working family with two children about £300 a year.”

“The freeze, which has been in place since 2015, means a real-terms cut in income for millions of people because of rising living costs.”

Poverty and homeless increase yet who cares, most people carry on with their own lives oblivious.

How many of us were aware that back in July 100 tenants each day where being evicted as a result of cuts to benefits, this number will no doubt rise with the introduction of Universal Credit.

“More than 40,000 tenants in England were evicted in 2015, according to a study by the Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF). It is an increase of a third since 2003 and the highest level recorded. The research appears to confirm fears that a mixture of rising costs and falling state support would lead to a rise in people being forced out of their homes. It will raise concerns that even those in work are struggling to pay their rent.”

It is important to note that UC is a benefit for working people paid low wages.

Three thousand people responded to an a House of Commons inquiry into disability benefits when only about a hundred responses were expected. Responses are still coming in after the deadline has passed.

Inquiry into disability benefits ‘deluged’ by tales of despair

More than 3,000 people have written to work and pensions committee in despair at system, many saying they have been driven to suicidal thoughts

“A House of Commons inquiry into disability benefits has heard from more than 3,000 people in despair at the system, including dozens who say they have been driven to suicidal thoughts by the process.

Frank Field, the chair of the work and pensions committee, said it would be usual to receive about 100 responses, but the inquiry had been deluged by people sharing stories about being denied disability benefits or battles to keep their entitlements.

The evidence includes testimony from many saying their mental health had deteriorated as a result of trying to claim the employment support allowance (ESA) for daily living costs and/or the personal independence payment (PIP) to cover the extra costs caused by long-term disability.”

Life for many in the sixth richest economy is hell thanks to Tory polices and the indifference of other people.

Read the Story of Sue and others lives turned into a nightmare by UC

‘It’s just mistake after mistake’ – stories from the universal credit catastrophe

“It was introduced to simplify benefits and encourage people to work. Yet from a bungled rollout to Kafkaesque rules and the infamous six-week payment delay, universal credit has caused untold misery. John Harris meets people who have had their lives turned upside down. ”

With only £48 a week of child benefit coming in, Sue had effectively stopped eating. “I was trying to make stuff from the food bank last longer. I lived off cereal, so the kids could eat. That went on for three months.”

…the time it took to process her application and start paying her the right amount of money went way beyond six weeks, to almost three months.

One of her most vivid memories is of explaining what was happening to her eldest son. “I sat down with him, and I was crying my eyes out. I said: ‘I’m so sorry – I’ve got no money at all for anything for Christmas . It was only through our church’s generosity, giving us bits and pieces for the kids, that they actually had presents on Christmas day. None of it was from us.”

This is the tip of the iceberg. People’s lives have been made hell on earth since Tory changes to welfare, so many people do not know where to turn or have the wherewithal to write to committees, either worn down by the misery of draconian welfare assessments, by the severity of their illness often made worse by the nature of these assessments or they simply do not have the ability to write about their situation.

The Tories are on a mission to dismantle the UK’s welfare state.

I get sick of hearing that the Tories are out of touch with reality. The implication being that it is incompetence rather than a deliberate attempt to destroy our welfare state. The truth is the Tories are using cuts as a means of destroying the welfare state – including the NHS which they detest.

Read

How to dismantle the welfare state in five easy steps – and ways to spot the Government doing it

The above article is eighteen months old but the points it makes are valid now as they were than.

Don’t be fooled with the misleading implication of Tory ineptitude, even by those opposed: benefit cuts and cuts to NHS funding are deliberate a attempt to end our welfare state.

Universal credit is not the only problematic benefit. The Tories new Personal Independence Payment PIP which replaced Disability Living Allowance DLA has left thousands of disabled people without this extra support or with a less amount of money.

The government are slowing dismantling our social security until it resembles the US – virtually nonexistent.

If you think this is far fetched, such abuse of sick and disabled people would not happen in the UK think again.

Read the following

The staggering rise in PIP complaints shows there’s rot in the system

It’s not just the scale of the complaints, it’s the increasing evidence that disability benefits are being removed on fabricated grounds

‘Almost 80% of disabled people put through the PIP test have seen their health deteriorate due to stress or anxiety.’

Note in the above article that there are “claims of widespread dishonesty in the disability benefit system, with more than 250 PIP claimants alleging assessors repeatedly lied, ignored written evidence and dishonestly reported the results of physical examinations. ”

Claiming PIP is a harrowing and degrading experience added misery, anxiety, stress and depression to the lives of vulnerable people whose lives are already difficult as consequence of their conditions

After reading this story why you might ask why did this person receive zero points

Cece’s epilepsy last May left her bed bound for three months!

Her “focal onset seizures ranging from between once a week to sometimes ten to fifteen a day – these leave me confused, exhausted, emotional, unaware, and unable to speak or move. I’ve caused harm to myself many times, being alone in my flat while my partner is at work.”

“The assessor was shocked when she saw that I struggled to write my own name because I’d had a seizure three days prior to the assessment; she was shocked when I told her about my job; she was shocked to hear that on bad days I can’t even walk to my GP surgery which is only a 15 minute walk away, or stand in the shower which is why we have an unbecoming IKEA stool in our lovely bathroom, that when my partner is away I can’t cook for myself because I can’t be by the stove unsupervised; she was shocked to hear that if I have a seizure while out, I become confused and lose my way and struggle to read maps – even a tube map, yet I grew up in London. Every Londoner knows that a tube map is like their children’s Bible and by the time you hit adolescence, you don’t even need that bad boy because you have it memorised. Well, not when you have recurrent seizures.

None of this was in this assessment report however… No mention of my awkward crying either, or the constant prompting for answers, because of my slow brain. Furthermore, my mobility problems, medical history and mental health issues were also relegated to thin air, and in the end I scored zero points.”

While it’s bad here in the UK it could get worse. Sadly I rather think this is what the government intend for the UK

Read the following from the Washington Post

10,000 people died waiting for a disability decision in the past year

597 days.
And still waiting.

10,000 people died in the past year while stuck
in a backlog of judges’ disability cases.

What will happen to Joe Stewart?

“Stewart had first applied for federal disability benefits on May 21, 2015. The application was denied, and so was his appeal. When he appealed the second rejection, he went to the back of one of the federal government’s biggest backlogs, where 1.1 million disability claimants wait for one of some 1,600 Social Security administrative law judges to decide whether they deserve a monthly payment and Medicare or Medicaid. “A death sentence” is how Stewart, who has no health insurance, has come to think of another denial.

For other applicants, the wait itself may be enough to accomplish that. In the past two years, 18,701 people have died while waiting for a judge’s decision, increasing 15 percent from 8,699 deaths in fiscal 2016 to 10,002 deaths in fiscal 2017, according to preliminary federal data obtained by The Washington Post. The rising death toll coincides with a surge in the length of time people must wait for a disposition, which swelled from a national average of 353 days in 2012 to a record high of 596 this past summer.”

Remember anyone can be ill at any time, lose their job, become homeless. None of us are immune to the suffering that is taking palce here in the UK as a result of vicious tory policies which are taking us back to a time we had hoped had faded into history.

Related Links

Apparently universal credit claimants will now only have to wait five weeks instead of six! BIG BLOODY DEAL when you have no money. Housing benefit to continue for an extra two weeks after the start of a universal credit claim. Again hopelessly inadequate, not everyone has savings for a rainy day, thousands of people here in the UK live from week to week . By way of comparison, in 2015-16, government targets for the waiting times for income support, jobseeker’s allowance and employment and support allowance were between 10 and 14 days).

An insult, a joke. .These changes as pathetic as they are will not come in time to help claimants struggling before Christmas, as they only take effect from next year.

The planet does not need more successful people. The planet desperately needs more peacemakers, healers & lovers of all kinds.Dalai Lama

The world right now seems so empty of compassion and genuine kindness, even in our daily lives people seem indifferent at best, aggressive and hostile at worst. Sometimes we need to remind ourselves there are good people in the world.

Here are a few examples, some are just small acts of kindness in this impatient world of haste, selfishness and greed.

This next act of kindness will restore your faith in humanity. A homeless man uses all the money he has to help a woman stranded alone by the roadside without patrol.

Woman raises £300k for homeless man who gave her his last £15

“Kate McClure, 27, started the Gofundme.com page when she became stranded on the Interstate 95 in Philadelphia and homeless man, Johnny Bobbit Jr walked a few blocks and bought her some with his last £15.

Ms McClure did not have any cash to repay him that night, but returned to the road with cash, clothes and food to say thank you.

She then set up the fundraising page in the hopes of getting £10,000 to help towards housing for Johnny, reports the Metro.”

Google translation of the extraction above. You can use Google or other translator to read the entire article:

“Almost no one would tolerate that the considered companion animals, -dogs, cats, etc- were treated like the farm animals , and would try to avoid their abuse or killing.”Many people feel revulsion and indignation when they know that other parts of the world consume, for example, dog meat. But at the same time, they do not seem to care if beef, pork, or chicken is consumed. We may think that animals matter to us, but in reality they are just some of them. Maybe we are not aware of what really happens in farms and slaughterhouses. Or maybe we’ve never wanted to think deeply about it. “I have been infiltrating slaughterhouses for more than six months and, without being able to show my repulsion or getting upset, I have had to witness all the horror of those places and the atrocities perpetrated against animals for the sole purpose of showing you what really happens there”

Now I ask you to make an effort and look.”

You might also find the following interview with a slaughterhouse worker revealing though very shocking.

To provide you with a traditional Thanksgiving meal 45 million turkeys have to die. It is impossible to image the full extent of this horror as you sit down to eat a roast that doesn’t really resemble a living creature. An intelligent sentient feeling being who only a matter of weeks ago, or maybe even only a few days if your turkey is fresh not frozen, lived and breathed and was aware, aware of the pain and suffering he or she endured in a factory farm, the extent of which despite shocking videos many people still fail to fully comprehend.

This Thanksgiving please choose life over death, kindness over cruelty and leave turkey off your plate.

I don’t think the majority of people would intentionally harm an animal, but if you eat meat including turkey you are contributing to the cruelty and death of billions of sentient beings who feel pain and suffer as you do. If you sit down to turkey at Thanksgiving you are complicit in the death of these sentient creatures, who are full of life, intelligent, curious, sensitive and brave: Benjamin Franklin referred to turkeys as “a bird of courage. He suggested that the turkey rather than the eagle be the national symbol of the US.

“I am on this account not displeased that the Figure is not known as a Bald Eagle, but looks more like a Turkey. For the Truth the Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America . . . He is besides, though a little vain & silly, a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a red coat on.”

Benjamin Franklin in a letter to his daughter.

Tradition and habits are hard to break but once you have you then wonder why you waited so long before doing so, particularly if your actions were causing harm. I am not from the US and don’t celebrate thanksgiving of course but the same problem returns for us all in about one month’s time at Christmas, when yet again turkey is a meal that is eaten traditionally or habitually. I am ashamed to say now that it took a few Christmases to realize that it does not matter what you eat as long as it does no harm to any animal.

I recall many years ago during the run up to Christmas while queuing in the butchers feeling very uncomfortable as I thought about ordering a Turkey. It occurred to me that by doing so I was condemning one particular turkey to death. This concept occurred to me more keenly than such would perhaps be experienced if I had gone to our local supermarket and bought one straight from the freezer section. But no my family always had a fresh turkey for Christmas. I salved my anxiety and indeed my conscience by telling myself that if I did not order a turkey than someone else would. But such thinking was not in the least convincing as of course no matter who else bought a turkey, my ordering a turkey would of course result in the death of a particular turkey somewhere along the line. Nonetheless I am ashamed to say, it took a few more years to finally make the decision to become vegetarian, this delay was mostly due to habit and what I now consider was very shallow thinking or rather not thinking. It seemed that Christmas would not be Christmas without a turkey. Thinking it seems is the key, or rather not thinking, which results in the perpetuation of an omnivorous diet, a diet consisting of meat and vegetables, a diet to which most people in the west are accustomed. I think few people intend to be cruel and they do so simply because of thoughtlessness. And again I am now ashamed to say it took a few more years after the initial thought to become vegetarian and eventually vegan, though the concern over meat eating had been present to some degree since childhood.

From early childhood I had questioned to some extent the eating of animals for food. My mother told me that once as a young child I was given a book with a story about a turkey, a book I thoroughly enjoyed and one which was read to me over and over and that all through Christmas dinner that year I cried “poor turkey, poor turkey” and would not eat a thing. I guess even at a young age the incongruity of books telling stories about animals and sitting down to eat one was obvious and that adults seemed unaware of such inconsistencies was also plainly bizarre. The problem being that as children we knew that killing and eating an animal was wrong, we just knew didn’t we that animals had lives of their own, where sentient and that they felt pain and wished to live. We didn’t need scientific validation, this is something we all knew as did our parents when they were young, yet they enforced meat eating as did their parents.

If you are in any doubt here is the reality of the cruelty behind your Thanksgiving dinner:

A bit short notice if you are not already aware of the following protest, but if you can please do join the demonstration outside Downing street and around the country taking place tomorrow Tuesday November 21st.

If you can’t participate in the protest please send an email to your MP supporting the demonstration.

The Tories’ destruction of our welfare system is unrelenting.With every passing day more and more shocking facts come to light as vulnerable and poor people are plunged ever deeper into poverty and despair.

Here are some of the latest

A cheap stunt by the government over Universal Credit will lead to thousands of children a year being worse off

“The government has made a significant change to the controversial roll out of Universal Credit. It’s launched a consultation on proposed changes to a policy affecting over one million children. It says more children will be helped by the plans.

But dig a little deeper into the details and it actually seems like a cheap stunt. Because the proposals could eventually lead to around 16,000 of the most deprived children being worse off every year.”

Theresa May Day + 3 – Families who made a new Universal Credit application still not heard if successful.First weekend since applying & what money they had will be starting to run short**Estimated over 60,000 households with 40,000 children no money until after Xmas @theresa_maypic.twitter.com/QUqLJDODZc

3 million families are losing an average of 2,000 a year as a result of UC

Action on poverty says that more than a million children will be in poverty due to cuts as a result of universal credit.

Does this insensitive robotic woman have no feelings. The number of people being evicted has gone down so she says in the above video, by a whole third, so that makes it all right then despite the fact that two thirds, hundreds of people, continue to be evicted as a result of universal credit. You’re just a number to them, this woman and others of her ilk have no feelings, no compassion no concern for you as an individual. It has been announced that over Christmas people who are changing to universal credit will get no money until after the christmas period. How the hell are they supposed to survive for six weeks with no income. Hard at anytime but more devastating this time of year.

Please sign the following petition:

A small admin oversight by the government will mean thousands of people will be left penniless this Christmas, without enough to pay their rent or buy food – let alone celebrate Christmas.

What is happening to poor and disabled people here in the UK is disgusting

The government will not even investigate whether people claiming Universal Credit are forced to use food banks

Separately, the Peabody Trust housing association, one of the UK’s biggest social landlords, has calculated the delays will put about 23,000 families – with 41,000 children – at risk of destitution in the run-up to Christmas.

The problems are likely to escalate with the extension of Universal Credit. Even by the end of January, only 10 per cent of benefits claimants will be receiving it.

How the hell can anyone live on £22 a week. Moreover this money has to be paid back!

Here is more of the grim reality of Tory Britain as diseases of the Victorian era return to Salford: rickets and beriberi – thought to be long eradicated – are on the rise due to food poverty according to a shocking new report

Never forget if you vote Tory you are complicit ! Your actions in the ballot box have set the clock back to a time and circumstances that we had hoped had been consigned to history long ago. Your vote is destroying the lives of children and disabled and sick people. Think of that when you sit down to your Christmas dinner, in your warm home and watch your children pay with their new toys. Thanks to your vote Christmas for many people will be like something out of Dickens!

Comment on the Guardian article above which basically sums up the situation.

“One way to judge a society is by our children .If that is the case this cruel tory goverment has proved to be an abject failure .There is a massive divide between the rich and the poor.This has to be a deliberate policy. This goverment has chosen to give more to the very rich at the cost of the poor .There policies are designed to be cruel to those struggling to get by .This Tory goverment are well aware of the plight of the poor .By there actions have proved they don’t care.

Food banks are mistake this goverment has allowed .these statements on our society are just the tip of the ice berg .Our public services a vital life line for us all are collapsing.worse child poverty is rife in our country in 2017 .employment deregulation is seen as outrageous .When the ultra rich benefit from tax breaks ,and then to add insult to injury use tax havens to avoid there responsibility to society we all live in .The duty of any goverment is to ensure its citizens are treated fairly .Its obvious this goverment has failed.”

If you can, please attend your nearest protest tomorrow.

Also please write to your MP express in the strongest terms, though politely, your outrage concerning the continuous onslaught of misery and suffering caused by Universal Credit and other benefit cuts and changes on vulnerable members of our society including children, people with disabilities and the elderly.

In the USA more than 45 million turkeys are killed each year at Thanksgiving alone, and more than 22 million die at Christmas.

Annually 300 million turkeys are raised and killed for their flesh in the United States with no federal legal protection which exposes them to wicked and unimaginable cruelty. Besides no creature wants to die and no creature needs die to provide you at any time with a food that is not natural.

Turkeys Used for Food

“Ben Franklin called turkeys “true American originals.” He had tremendous respect for their resourcefulness, agility, and beauty. Turkeys are intelligent animals who enjoy having their feathers stroked and who like listening to music, with which they will often loudly sing along. In nature, turkeys can fly 55 miles an hour, run 18 miles an hour, and live up to 10 years.”

Please watch the video below if you haven’t already done so in the above link:

This will put you off your Christmas dinner, if it doesn’t what does that say about the type of person you are.

Warning

Yes it is upsetting and if you are a sensitive caring person who doesn’t eat tortured dead animals then you probably do not need to watch. But if you are thinking of sitting down to turkey roast on Christmas day this undercover video is vital viewing.

“Undercover investigator shows the public how chicken and turkeys are really treated before they reach your grocery store.”

If the answer is no click the Pledge Vegan button in the link above and change to a vegan diet.

If you think that the above cruelty happens only in the USA think again – sadly more harrowing horrors and shocking cruelty to sentient beings occurs in the UK.

“Undercover footage of the conditions in which turkeys are reared on six farms – including two of the UK’s biggest producers. The video shows overcrowded sheds, dead and dying birds, animals with gaping wounds, birds with one half of their beak removed and cannibalism. The companies involved are Bernard Matthews (the biggest turkey producer in Europe), Kerry Foods (owners of Home Pride, Mattessons Walls and Greens), and farms in Braintree, Sevenoaks, Chichester and Devon.”

Here in the UK 10 million turkeys are massacred at Christmas – a total of 15 million all year round.

Consider if you can’t give up eating a turkey for Christmas day, even though there is much cruelty and suffering involved, well maybe you should consider your health:

“The predicted shortage comes as a result of the outbreak of Avian Flu experienced across Europe last year and the knock-on effect of rearing restrictions that meant fewer turkeys, and other birds, were bred.”

The above article also included the following:

“Recent research, conducted by Quorn, revealed that 61% of Brits are already eating meat free dishes week in, week out and 83% of families are now enjoying a meat free dinner at least once a week.”

Don’t replace turkey with chicken, goose or any other living being, do the right thing and celebrate Christmas by going vegan

Here are some ideas for a cruelty free Christmas and real peace on earth to all beings, not just human beings. Whether you’re religious, Christian or other religion, this is what religion should be about, namely bringing peace and harmony to earth for all creatures, not death, torture and misery.

I think most of us here in the UK are now familiar with the story of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, if not you will find information hereand here.

Below are actions you can take to help Nazanin gain her freedom.

The first is a petition by Richard Ratcliffe, Nazanin’s husband

“Petitioning Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party Theresa May MP and 4 others:
“Theresa May MP, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, David Cameron, MP Jeremy Corbyn MP, Tim Farron MP

Free Nazanin Ratcliffe

Please sign the following petition to help British Iranian charity worker Nazanin who was arrested on her way back from a family holiday to Iran. Nazanin has been in jail in Tehran for 19 months.

“My wife Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 37 year old charity worker, was on holiday visiting her family in Iran. She was at the airport returning to the UK on the 3rd April when she was detained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. She has been transferred to an unknown location in Kerman Province, 1,000 kilometres south of Tehran, and is being held in solitary confinement.”

HELP GET NAZANIN HOME

“Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is a British-Iranian mother imprisoned in Iran. She’s serving a five-year prison sentence but she hasn’t committed any crime.

Nazanin was recently told she could face new charges and potentially even more years in prison, separated from her young daughter and husband. She is in poor mental and physical health. Urge the Iranian authorities to immediately release Nazanin and help get her home”

Read the story of a survivor of the prison where Nazanin Zaghari- Ratcliffe is being held:

“It was a black hole of human-made evil, which had sucked you in,” said Ms Nemat, who now lives in Canada. She added: “I just want her to know she’s not forgotten. She just needs to hang in there because it will come to an end — she will come home. She has to believe that.

“Being forgotten is the worst thing in prison because you feel you have been wiped from the end of the Earth.”

“When I was in prison the most difficult thing for me was the thought that the world had forgotten me, and doesn’t give a damn.”

“The British woman who has been jailed in Iran has seen a medical specialist after finding lumps on her breasts and is “on the verge of a nervous breakdown”, her husband has said.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is being held in one of Iran’s most brutal prisons on charges of spying and spreading propaganda, despite only being in the country on holiday with her daughter visiting her parents.”